Saturday, 1 September 2007

Famous for fifteen minutes

According to Martin Handley on the Radio 3 breakfast programme this morning, a conference on minimalist music is to feature a piece in which two keys on an organ are to be anchored down: for fifteen minutes.

I laughed (as who would not) at Handley's comment - are they going to anchor down the audience?

The quiet one-note hum of an organ pump or a heating system in a particularly atmospheric church, say, can no doubt aid contemplation; and I can imagine there's a considerable human interest in studying the audience's reactions while desperately trying not to make it obvious that that's what you're doing (though I suspect a lot of people will come away with far too detailed a knowledge of the ceiling).

Can it count as "music" if there's no human intervention? Perhaps there'll be some particularly interesting way of varying the volume from time to time.

about me

60-something, mildly interested in and slightly knowledgeable about a lot of things, but - to my surprise - passionately devoted to little. Londoner born and bred, dyed-in-the-wool Guardianista and quietly settling into retirement.